DittoEcho Mashup Mix

So this probably won't help my little quest to prove that I'm not a mash-up artist, since here's a mix of mashups. I wrote a whole thing trying to explain why I'm not actually a mashup artist but why people might classify me as such that was needlessly full of logical loops and exceptions and such. So I erased it and I guess I'll just say that it seems that when you play weird funny stuff outside of whatever "scene" you’re considered to be a part of, critics sometimes don't know what to do with you. I found a little discussion on a board about whether some of my mixes are good mashups or not, which to me is a non sequitor ... either they're good mixes or they're not, or they have good mashups in them (or not). It's not a big deal in the end, the only thing that is a bit of a shame is that in this weird way such discussions go back to this slight stigma against being a DJ, this sort of sense, mindblowingly, that people who do mashups get to be considered legit artists because they produced a tight, easily-consumable, 3-6 minute pop package at the end of the day and therefore are subject to a whole string of critiques that DJs are still somewhat shut out of. I guess I'm happy that I'm getting lumped up the musical chain rather than down, but it's an illustration that, adoring fans aside, people in the musical press still have trouble thinking along the longer, more complicated lines good Djs work on. Which is a bit of a shame, because I think about almost every mix I do live as "If I recorded this, would it sustain my interest over its length, how do the different parts fit together, do they work for who might be listening, etc". Anyway, big up all DJs who are bucking trends and playing weird stuff that confuses the press. Let the mashup artists have their credit and be judged both by the songs they’re mashing and the history of masher/producers, and let the DJs be compared to their own rich history.

And DJs who make mixes exclusively of mashups? Well, you decided. That's what's below in a little mix I did live for EchoDitto Radio. EchoDitto itself, in their own words "... create vibrant communities online and empower people through the creative use of emerging technologies. Following on our progressive values, we believe that building authentic internet voices and the establishment of a vigorous open source community is critical to the functioning of our democracy." [Progressive here means “I’m politically progressive,” not “I play Progressive House at restaurants”, which to this day I still don’t really fundamentally understand what that is.]

Many at EchoDitto are veterans of Howard Dean's democratic presidential nomination bid and were the ones causing a ruckus in New Hampshire and elsewhere with the netroots community. They're doing fantastic work as online organizers for things like the SEIU fight against Wal-mart at Purple Ocean. The Dean campaign either directly or tangentially spawned a number of great organizations in a sort of nexus of liberal thought, activism, code crunching, copyright cracking, and music-as-political-motivator. Music for America is probably the most well known, but DownHill Battle are increasingly making their presence felt (as evidenced by the fact that I saw two different DJs on two consecutive nights wearing Downhill tee-shirts), CivicSpace Labs are open for business, and all this links up with stuff that was going on in the music/copyright/activist world already with organizations like the EFF (Wesleyan represent!), Creative Commons, and the Future of Music Coalition.

Exciting stuff, but how does all this lead to a mix? Simple really, as major proponents of Podcasting, EchoDitto's radio station decided they were gonna start airing musical mixes along side various interviews with copyhackers, politicians, musicians (check out who the interview two before me is!!!!! them's some big shoes to follow), and us common folk. I thought a mashup mix would fit in well with their agenda. And then Jimmy Tones threw in an interview as well, now effectively demolishing that precious faceless-DJ barrier I've come to treasure (I'm kidding). So now you all get to hear what I sound like at 8:30 in the AM, being interviewed on the sly at work about mashups (link below mix). Enjoy!

Kid Kameleon - DittoEcho DJCast
(Direct Download here)

1. Go Home Productions - Beatleg Bootles Part 1
2. Dubplates for Dummies - Lexxus vs. Billy Jean
3. Mochipet - Johnny Cash Vs. Cash Money Millionaires
4. Afrikan & Chico - Pass Da Dutch Remix
5. Loo & Placido - Rigby Reggae
6. Massive Sounds - Fire with Fire (Bounty Killer)
7. Punchline - Get Impeccable (Heatwave Mix)
8. AL-B3 - Brush Your Bitter Sweet Shoulders Off
9. Punchline - Trick Me Twice (Heatwave Mix)
10. Pilchard - Scrub Your Milkshake
11. DJ Dangermouse - Nas vs Portishead
12. DJ Axel - Lil' Brick House
13. Jstar - Musictime
14. Mei-Lwun - Sweet Home Country Grammar
15. Salute Blends - On Line
16. DJ Brown Fiyah - Sha La La (Hanijah's Birthday Mixx)

Echo Ditto interview with Kid K here